Choice
by Michelle Birkby
Summary: This is a story about Robert and Alison, from Afterlife. This is a UK TV series about a medium, and the sceptic studying her and it's fantastic!. This story is shippy, perhap a little scary, and is set sometime after the 2nd season.
1. Chapter 1

I told Barb that I'd let Alison drift out of my life, but to tell the truth, I pushed her. I stopped taking her calls. I stopped calling her. I closed up my boat, and moved back in with Jude. I kept out of my office, and didn't answer the messages she left on my phone. The last time I saw her, we argued.

"You made me need you, Robert!" she screamed at me, and I was sure the entire university could hear her. "You insinuated yourself into my life, when I didn't want you, and you made me need you, and now you're just shutting me out!"

"The book's over, Alison." I said, staying calm, resisting the urge to get angry myself. Alison was almost the only person in the world who could make me lose my temper, and I resented the lack of control. I resented all the chaos she'd brought to my life. "We were just writer and subject, and yes, I admit we were friends for a while, but that's all. I need to concentrate on my life now, not yours."

"Screw you, Robert." she said, in that flat voice of hers, although her eyes were blazing. "Screw you."

And she left.

I was relieved when she was gone. Sometimes, when someone comes into your life, and makes you question and reexamine everything in it, when they change your perception of the world and your work and your friends, and your past and even yourself, it is much easier to walk away from that person. Just shut the doors that have been opened, and go back to that normal, safe, sane life you had before. Just forget.

And that was what I did. It wasn't until a year later, when I saw her on a late night chat show that I realised that walking away from Alison had left a gaping void in my life.

I didn't know she was on TV that night. I was sitting alone in the living room late one night, waiting for Jude to come home. I was reading, and shifted on the sofa, and I must have stepped on the remote control, because the television just came on. I looked up, and there she was and my heart stopped, for just a second.

It was one of those late-night discussion shows, taking about life after death. On the against side was a calm, reasoning professor who put forward good points and sane rational argument. On the for side was Alison, talking in her vague way, admitting she didn't have all the answers, twisting her hands in her old gold skirt, obviously nervous, stammering a little. Her argument wasn't as coolly intellectual as the sceptic's, but she was convincing in her absolute belief in ghosts. God knows how she had managed to get chosen for the show, because she had never exactly looked for fame. But then my name was mentioned, and my book, and I realised what I had written had made her into a minor celebrity. A voice for those that could not speak – not just the spirits now, but the believers.

She was trying so hard, trying to articulate what she knew, even as the sceptic quoted what I had written back to her. And then her voice trailed off, and I saw her stare off to the side of the camera., with that look I knew, that look beyond. The sceptic began to scoff, but she ignored him. She just looked, steadily, at the same spot. The camera swung round to follow her gaze, but nothing was there. Nothing visible to anyone but Alison.

"What do you see, Alison?" I asked softly, forgetting she wasn't in the same room.

"If you're not careful, you'll crawl right into that telly."

Jude's voice shocked me back to awareness. I'd crawled on to the floor, as up close to the TV as I could, and I was reaching out to touch the screen – touch Alison.

""What's so fascinating anyhow?" she asked, coming into the room to look at the screen.

"Nothing." I said quickly, and turned it off. I felt guilty, as if I'd been caught in infidelity.

"Hmm, late-night porn, I bet. Well I'm going to bed. Coming?"

"In a minute. Just have to clear up." I said, waving a hand vaguely at the papers scattered all around. She gave me a mock suspicious look, but left. As soon as I was sure she was upstairs, I switched the television back on, but Alison was gone.

* * *

I couldn't concentrate the next day. I just kept thinking of Alison. I'd thought she was gone from my life, but just a second of seeing her had been all it had taken to reawaken the old craving. Yes, I could admit it now, it was a craving. To be near her, to somehow, through her, touch the world beyond, to catch glimpses of a truth I'd never understand and could scarcely believe in.

And if I was truthful, to be needed by her. I had always been the one who needed – needed Jude, needed my work, even needed Josh. The only person who had ever needed me before Alison had been Josh, and he was gone. But Alison had needed me. Needed me to help her hang on to reality, needed me to guide her back to this world, to protect her from the darkness and death she had touched.

And she was right. I had caused that need. I'd made her go further, push harder than ever before, made her think I'd always been there to bring her back, and then left her alone.

When the day was over, I got in my car to drive home. I drove automatically, barely aware of what I was doing, and then I stopped, I wasn't outside Jude's house. Instead, I found myself outside Alison's house. I didn't knock on her door. I didn't even get out of my car. I parked my house across the street, under a broken street lamp, and waited.

I only had to wait until dusk. That was when she returned, wearily climbing the long hill path to her door, looking tired, and isolated. I didn't jump out of the car and greet her. I think I was afraid to, afraid of her anger, my guilt. Afraid of ...I don't know what. I never really knew what I was going to feel and do around Alison. I just watched her, walking as if the weight of all those grieving relatives who begged her for help was still on her shoulders.

At her door, she turned around and for a moment I thought she had seen me. But then I saw she wasn't looking at me, but at something else entirely. Something on the empty, half-dark street. Something as visible as the thing in the TV studio had been. I watched her, staring into empty space.

And then she screamed.

"Leave me alone." she shrieked, her voice carrying to me on the breeze. "I'm not ready. Leave me alone!" and she ran in, slamming the door. I could hear the bolts shoot home.

I was shaken. Alison had been afraid, but she'd been afraid before. She'd always been slightly afraid of what she could do, of the evil her gift could reveal. But it was more than that this time. She as utterly terrified. What had she seen?

I didn't stir. I sat there for a while, wondering if I should go in, knowing she'd push me away. The street was utterly silent, only the sound of one man's footsteps echoing though the street, walking towards me. A nosy neighbor, wondering what I was doing there. I looked up.

The street was empty. Completely empty. And still the footsteps echoed through the street with a slight tinny sound. I heard them walk towards me, past me, stop outside Alison's door.

They stopped for a second, and I sat there, thinking I imagined it, when there came a tremendous banging – no, more of a thumping on Alison's front door. The banging was so hard that I could see her door shaking, but still no-one stood on her front steps. I bolted out of my car, but hesitated. What if I ran up to the door? Would she think it was me banging on her door like that? Physical danger I could protect her from, just being there to support her I was brilliant at, but whatever was going on here was beyond my expertise.

While I was hesitating, all the lights in her house went on, one by one and I heard her thump back on the door and scream "NO!".

The banging stopped. Then I heard the footsteps come down the steps, towards me, past me. I may have felt a chill in the air as they passed me, or maybe I imagined it.

I went up to Alison's house, and peered though the window, where the lace curtain sagged and gapped. Alison had laid out a row of glasses, all different shades and sizes and styles in front of her, and she was methodically pouring wine into all of them. Once the bottle was empty, she began to drink the first glass. It had the air of a ritual, a private sacred ritual, and I knew I couldn't interfere.

I left.


	2. Chapter 2

I sat on the sofa, and stared into the fire, and drank my beer, and thought. I hardly noticed when Jude sat down beside me until she said.

"I know what you're thinking about." she said, with a sad sweet smile. I looked at her sharply. "Josh." she said simply. I grunted non-noncommittally as she put her arm around me.

I hadn't been thinking of Josh. I hadn't even been thinking of the footsteps and the door. Given time, I suppose I could have deduced a rational explanation for them, but I couldn't be bothered. I was thinking of seven different glasses full of wine, and a woman with startling blue eyes draining the contents one by one. I was thinking about the time, a year and a half ago, as she lay dying in my arms.

Dying. Dead. She'd been dead. I'd felt the life leave her and I'd been devastated. I remembering screaming and crying and begging her to come back, come back to me. I'd pulled her up, and clutched her to me, grasping her, trying to force my life into her. I'd dragged her back to life. I'd called her, and she'd come back to me, and then I'd left her alone.

What kind of bastard was I? And what the hell was happening to Alison?

I got up, ignoring Jude's protests, and put on my coat.

"I'm just going to office." I lied. "Last minute marking."

* * *

I didn't care if Alison pushed me away. I didn't care if she swore at me and refused to see me. I wouldn't even care if she hit me. I was going to do the one and only thing I'd ever been able to do for Alison. I was going to protect her.

The problem was, where to start? I couldn't just walk back into her life again and demand to know what was going on. But there was no-one she confided in, as far as I knew. The only person she'd ever talked to about her experiences, about the more disturbing side of who she was, had been me.

I'd kept a copy of my book in my office, and all the notes to go with it. For some reason I hadn't wanted any trace of my relationship with Alison anywhere near my home.

No – Jude's home. That's why I'd kept them here, far away from Jude, separate from our life together. Alison didn't belong in our very normal middle class existence. She was too disturbing, in so very many ways.

I'd delved into my notes for hours, re-listening to the tapes I'd made with Alison, listening to her very ordinary voice telling me the most extraordinary tales. I was there for hours, trying to find some clue as to who or what had been banging on her door. I was only interrupted by Barb popping her head round my door and asking me what I thought I was doing.

"Have you heard from Alison?" I asked. She came in and shut the door behind her.

"No, and I know you haven't either, not after that book."

"The book's not that bad." I said defensively, leaning forward to switch off the tape.

"Robert, you called her delusional."

"I didn't call her delusional. I never said she was lying, or that she didn't believe in the truth of what was happening."

"No, you just said it was all in her head, buried deep in her subconscious and any shared experience others had with her was down to mass hysteria."

"Barb..."

"Okay, you didn't put it like that, you wrapped it up n all kinds of academic language, but that was the gist of it. It surprised me, actually. I thought you were coming round to her point of view."

"I was. I just..."

"Ran away from something that scared you, that was beyond your understanding. God knows I don't believe in what she was doing, Robert, and ..."

"She's in trouble." I said flatly, breaking into her psychoanalysis of me.

"How do you know? Have you seen her?"

"Yes..no...I don't...don't ask me how, Barb, I just know she's in trouble, and I have to help her."

"How?"

"I've no idea."

She stood up.

"Go see her, Robert. God knows, whatever she says, you can't be more miserable than you look right now." she paused on her way out, then turned back to me. "I did see her, actually. I bumped into her in the street. She looked awful. Drawn and tired and..."

"And?" I asked, eagerly.

"Haunted. Yes, that's the word. Haunted."

"Did you ask her what was wrong?"

"I asked how she was. She just said 'The walls are coming down." but before I could ask her what she meant, she left."


	3. Chapter 3

I went up to Alison's door, and walked away again five times before I got up the courage to knock on her door. I was shaking, physically shaking, and I wasn't sure whether I was nervous that she wouldn't open the door, or nervous that she would.

The door opened, and she stood there, so fragile and small, so angry.

"What the hell do you want?" she demanded, and there was no warmth in her eyes.

"I...I was worried about you."

"I'm fine." she said, slamming the door in my face, but I stopped the door before it closed.

"The walls are coming down?" I asked.

"It's none of your business, Robert. You made your choice, and you chose to walk out of my life."

"I know, and I'm sorry...but Alison...I was here the other night, outside the door...the footsteps and the banging. I want to help. Please, let me help."

She stared at me a moment, that intense piercing stare that cut through any defences I'd built up. Then she stepped back, and let me in.

I went into the kitchen. It looked just the same, a hodge-podge of styles and patterns and colours that was uniquely Alison. The only thing that was different was my book, crumpled on the floor and covered in dust, as if she'd thrown it down there in the corner months ago and never bothered to pick it up again.

I picked up the book, and flicked through it. The margins were covered in scribbles, in pencil at first, then in pen, the writing getting harder until it tore through the paper. On one page she'd scribbled 'No, No, NO!' and there was nothing else written after that. Obviously she'd thrown the book aside at that point.

"I read the book." she said, from behind me.

"Sorry."

"You should be." she walked past me, very close, and I felt the air change around me as she brushed past, a sudden surge of electricity. As if, for one moment, I was inside the other-worldly aura that surrounded Alison.

"What do you want, Robert?" she asked, sitting up on the counter, legs crossed, her body language firmly insisting that she didn't want me to be there.

"To help."

"I don't need your help."

"I'm sorry for the book. I think I was wrong."

"You think?"

"I know."

She went silent. She didn't ask me why I'd written what I had. Perhaps she knew.

Upstairs, something cracked. Wood settling, perhaps. Nothing unusual. It was an old, ramshackle house, full of noises. Except Alison suddenly tensed, her hands gripping the counter so hard the knuckles went white.

"Alison..." I started to say, but she interrupted.

"Alright, you've made your apology, you can leave now."

The cracking sounds expanded, continued, one after the other.

"What's going on?" I demanded.

It wasn't cracking any more. It was footsteps. Heavy, distinct footsteps.

"Alison..."

"You have to leave now, Robert." she said, trying to hustle me to the front door. But she was shaking and her eyes were wide with fear.

More than one set of footsteps. People. People were upstairs in Alison's empty house.

"I'm not going anywhere, Alison. Not until you tell me what's going on."

"Robert, please!" her voice was rising now, tinged with pure terror.

I could hear a man, and a child. The click of a woman's high heels. And the lowest of low murmurs.

"Get out!Get out!" I wasn't sure if she was screaming at me or them. The footsteps, the voices, whispering, a hiss that permeated through the ceiling, down into the kitchen, down to Alison and I, Alison, whimpering in the corner. She backed away from me, towards the counter.

"The walls are coming down." she whispered, staring at the ceiling, shaking so hard the plates on the counter top rattled.

"Who are they?" I asked, but she couldn't answer me. And now I could hear the voices clearly. The hiss was a long drawn 's'...they were saying her name. Whatever they – it- was upstairs, it was saying Alison's name over and over again, and she seemed powerless against them. And now I could hear them coming closer, closer, on the stairs.

"I've had enough of this." I said, reaching to fling open the kitchen door, but Alison let out an incoherent scream and stopped me, reaching the door before me. She flung it open and shouted up the stairs.

"You can't have him! It's me you want, not him, and I won't let you have him!"

There was silence for a moment, and then a long drawn-out sigh. I pushed her aside, gently.

There was nobody on the stair. Just the darkness, at the very top, where the light had burnt out. Alison was too short to reach the light fitting, and I'd had to change the bulb last time.

I turned back to her, and she looked up at me, her face tear-stained, and so worn and pained it broke my heart to look at her

"Please go." she said, gently.

"In a moment." I went to the cupboard and took out a light bulb. I went to the top stair, nervous, remembering the footsteps, but determined not to leave one patch of darkness in Alison's house.

"Thank you." she said, once I'd changed the light. "You have to go now."

"You have to leave too. Alison, please..."

"I'll be safe now. They only come once. Just once a day, at dusk."

"Who?"

But she turned her back on me. I knew I couldn't argue with her in this mood.

"I'll go, but I'll be back tomorrow. At dusk."

"You won't." she said, and I don't know if she meant I'd let her down again, or that she didn't want me to come.

"I will." I promised her, and left, closing the door gently behind me.


	4. Chapter 4

I slept in the office. I didn't mean to. I really had meant to go home, back to Jude, but I got caught up in looking up references to 'walls coming down', in mediumistic literature, in spiritualistic literature, hell, even in novels, but I got nowhere. Nothing seemed to make any sense, and all I could hear was those footsteps, and Alison screaming that they couldn't have me.

I think she'd saved my life.

I fell asleep in my chair in the early morning, and woke up in the afternoon, after dreams of fear and confusion and chaos and darkness, always with Alison standing in the middle of them. It was mid-afternoon, and I just had time to go home and change and try to make excuses to Jude before dusk, before going back to Alison.

Jude was waiting for me, that sad sweet smile on her face again. She asked where I'd been, and why I'd slept in the office, and all at once I couldn't lie to her.

"Alison's in trouble. I'm trying to help her."

"Alison." she laughed bitterly. "I thought we'd put all that behind us. I thought you'd moved on with your life, Robert!"

"No, I didn't, that's the problem. I just moved back to my old life, trying to make it all the same as it was before Joshy died. Well, I can't, I have to go on, and Alison needs me!"

"I need you!"

"No, you don't! And honestly, I don't need you either. I did once, I loved you once, but that's all in the past and I never should have tried to resurrect it."

"Alison's taken you away from me."

"No, I'm taking me away from you." I said quietly. I had suddenly seen the truth of what I had been trying to do. I'd hadn't just been running away from Alison. It was from me too. Basic psychology, and I'd missed it. I looked out the window. The faintest suggestion of night was brushing the sky. "I have to go, Jude."

"If you go now, you don't come back." she said, trying to be strong but tears were running down her face. "I'm sorry to be so dramatic, but there it is. Either you stay now and try to talk this through with me, or you go now and never come back."

I didn't have the time to do this. Dusk was coming.

"I'm sorry, Jude." I turned to go.

"Do you need her?" she called after me as I opened the door.

"Yes. Yes I do."

"And do you love her?"

I couldn't answer that. I was running out of time.

Alison was running out of time.

* * *

When I got to her house, the door was open. I pushed it open wider gingerly and went into the kitchen. She was sitting there, a glass of wine in front of her, although she wasn't drinking it. She smiled a little when she saw me.

"I didn't think you'd come." she said. I sat down opposite her.

"I said I would."

"Yes." she glanced out the window. "It'll be dark soon, and then they'll come."

"Who? Who'll come? You have to tell me, Alison."

"Why? So you can say I'm delusional and it's all in my own head?" she asked, bitterly.

"No, so I can help you. You have to let me help you, Alison. You owe me that."

"I owe you?" she said, angrily. "How do you work that one out?"

"I mean you helped me." I said, patiently. I could already hear scrabbling upstairs. "You helped me with Josh. Now I have to help you."

There was a footstep upstairs, and then another. She looked up, then back at me.

"Alright." she said. "I suppose it'll make for a good chapter in your next book. The dead come and talk to me, do you believe that?"

"Yes." I said, and I meant it. The footsteps were louder now.

"Sometimes they come willingly, sometimes not. The point is, they're not supposed to be here. I'm a gateway for them. Do you understand?"

"Yes." they were whispering her name, over and over, soft and gentle, calling her like a lover.

"But gateways swing both ways, and now they're trying to take me back with them. Do you understand."

"Alison..no..how..." I could hear footsteps on the stairs, and now I was afraid too. The air around me was so heavy, I could barely breath it.

"They're going back and they're trying to take me with them. Like Josh tried to, do you remember?" she stood up, facing the door. I could hear them now, on the other side of the door, scrabbling at it.

"But you didn't go with Josh!"

"I almost did. He was only a little boy and I couldn't stop him. There's so many of them, Robert, and I'm so tired of fighting them."

She was standing up, facing the door, and the handle was slowly turning and I wasn't about to let this happen. I jumped up, pushing myself between her and the door.

"No, Alison. Josh didn't take you because I didn't let him, I kept you here and I'm keeping you here this time. They won't take you."

"But I'm ready, Robert." she said, sinking to her knees. I heard the door open behind me, and I felt a huge oppressive mass at my back, all calling her name, but I didn't turn around. I looked only at Alison.

"I'm not. I'm not losing you, Alison. I made you stay before and I'll keep you here this time."

"There's so many of them!"

And there were, chanting her name, and reaching past me with hands I couldn't see but could feel as they brushed my shoulders, reaching for her. I pulled her towards me, trying to get in front of them, to shield her.

"I'll keep you here. Just hold on to me, Alison. Just think about me!"

She started to reach out to them, but I pulled back her hand. I held onto her arm, feeling the ridge of the scars running up them, scars all over her body, proving she'd survived before. She'd always survived.

"Don't let them, just tell them no, you can do that, Alison."

There was heavy darkness all around her now, swallowing her. It was so thick I could taste it, the bitter taste of bile in my mouth. She stared past me, into the faces of whatever was trying to take her

"Alison, please, "

"I want to go to the dark." she said softly. "It's peaceful there. I can sleep."

"No, no, Alison, stay here. Stay with me. Look at me, look only at me. They're the darkness and I'm the light and if you look at me the darkness will go. Alison!"

She glanced once at me, but then back at them, and I knew unless I could drag her back to me, make her focus only on me, I'd lose her. I pulled her towards me and kissed her.

It wasn't a soft or pleasant kiss. I held her so tight I must have hurt her, and every part of me that ached for her, that craved her, that needed her to stay with me or I'd die burnt into her lips. It was a last, desperate attempt to keep the woman I loved by my side.

I only pulled away when I felt the darkness had gone, both from her and the house. I opened my arms and saw only a twilit kitchen. Nothing was behind me. Alison didn't look around. She only looked at me.

"That was one hell of a kiss, Robert." she said, a spark of the old humour flaring up, and then she fainted.

* * *

She didn't take 27 days to wake up this time. Barely 27 minutes. She woke up on the sofa, with me kneeling beside her.

"They've gone?" she asked.

"As far as I know, yes."

"They'll be back." she said, trying to sit up. I helped her up, and gave her a glass of water. My arm stayed round her.

"And I'll be here to protect you." it sounded too heroic, but I meant it. I would protect her and save her, even from herself if I had to. It was the only thing in my life to have any real meaning.

"You can't promise that." she said, trying to get up. I pulled her back down onto the sofa again.

"I can. I do. Promise, I mean. I will always be here for you. Now drink your water." she smiled, and snuggled into my shoulder, awkwardly, as if she wasn't used to the idea of a loving arm around her. I kissed the top of head, and let her fall asleep in my arms. She was safe there.

THE END


End file.
